Imby Gastrointestinal review

The Good band is where our scoring puts this recipe, and it shares that band with the typical adult dry food. Two things hold it there. Insect covers a third of the ingredients list, but the remainder leans on potato and pea and their refined proteins, which read less strongly than animal ones. Set against that, the label is unusually forthcoming: the prebiotic, the botanicals and both joint supplements carry declared amounts, and the trace minerals all have printed doses too. Protein and processing reads Good and transparency Outstanding, while nutritional balance is Average and value sits level with the overall in Good. Nothing on that list drags the rest down. The energy figure is our own estimate rather than a declared one, so treat the feeding guide as a starting point and let the waistline do the fine tuning.

Ingredients, as declared: Dehydrated insect (33%), dehydrated potato, potato starch, dehydrated peas, pea protein, sweet potato, cellulose, dehydrated beet pulp, yeast, minerals, potato protein, sunflower oil, flaxseed, fructooligosaccharides (0.7%), spirulina (0.4%), Yucca Shidigera extract (0.2%), choline chloride, glucosamine (200 mg/kg), chondroitin (200 mg/kg).

Dehydrated insect at 33% leads the list, and dehydrated is the useful word. Fresh meat still carries its water; this does not, so the figure you read is close to the figure that ends up in the finished kibble. Protein works out at 27.5% of dry matter. Carbohydrate is estimated at 44.5%, a shade under the 46.2% typical of adult dry food.

Behind the insect, potato in two forms and dehydrated peas do the binding, with sweet potato just behind them. Pea protein and potato protein then top the protein up. Both are perfectly respectable ingredients, but plant proteins do not match animal ones for completeness or digestibility, so read them as support and not as a second meat.

Digestion is what this recipe is for, and the fibre shows it. Dehydrated beet pulp brings soluble and insoluble fibre together, cellulose adds bulk without calories, and the good bacteria lower down get fructooligosaccharides at 0.7%. Yeast sits alongside them. Crude fibre lands at 6.6% of dry matter, a generous level for a dry food and plainly deliberate.

Sunflower oil supplies the fat, low in saturates and a natural source of vitamin E, with flaxseed adding omega 3 in its plant form. There is no fish oil at all, so the whole recipe is fish free. Spirulina at 0.4% and yucca extract at 0.2% round things off, the yucca a familiar choice for softening what comes out the other end.

The supplement panel is dosed, line by line. Glucosamine and chondroitin each arrive at 200 mg/kg, taurine at 500 mg, and every trace mineral carries a figure, from zinc at 85 mg down to selenium at 0.22 mg per kilo. The minerals arrive as sulphates and oxides, the ordinary form and not chelates. That is worth knowing and no cause for concern.

£9.99 a kilo, sold in a 4kg bag.

As a guide, a 15kg adult dog in moderate condition needs about 250 grams a day, which works out at £2.50 a day. The figure assumes around 840 kcal a day (110 × bodyweight^0.75, the standard maintenance estimate). Let the waistline settle any disagreement with the table on the bag.